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A daily chronicle of creativity in film, TV, music, arts and entertainment produced by Southern California Public Radio. Host John Horn leads the conversation, accompanied by the nation's most plugged-in cultural journalists.

In the new documentary, “What Haunts Us,” director/producer Paige Goldberg Tolmach returns to her hometown of Charleston, South Carolina to find out why so many male former students at her prep school alma mater were dying by suicide.

What Tolmach knew was that Eddie Fischer, a popular former teacher and coach at Porter-Gaud School, had been convicted of child sexual abuse in the late 1990s. He later admitted to molesting at least 39 boys.

What she didn’t know, was the extent to which school administrators had covered up Fischer’s sexual predation and how they’d allowed him to continue abusing children by giving him a favorable recommendation in 1982, when he was forced to leave Porter-Gaud.

Fischer's departure from the school came about after one of Tolmach’s friends told his parents he’d been abused. Tolmach didn't know what had happened until she learned of her friend's suicide.

Tolmach spoke with The Frame's John Horn about what prompted her to make "What Haunts Us," and why the culture of silence at her school is not unlike what plagues Hollywood.